Korean Airlines 007 revisited

With the 30th anniversary of the Korean Airlines 007 shoot down, and the recent petition filed by family members I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the incident. After reading about the petition filed by family members, I started rereading the details of the attack, and the more I read, the more my hackles raised. There are a number of things that aren't right, and a few that scream cover up.

The shoot down

On August 30, 1983 Korean Airlines flight 007 departed New York at 1225 am, approximately 35 minutes late (scheduled departure was 1150 pm), bound for Seoul, South Korea, via Anchorage. On board the flight were 246 passengers, and 23 crew members. The flight would land in Anchorage for fuel, cleaning, and servicing before departing on to Seoul.

At approximately 4 am local time, KE007 departed Anchorage. Almost immediately (unknown to the crew), things began to go wrong. Upon being cleared to the Bethel checkpoint, the autopilot should have been placed into either INS or VOR/LOC mode. VOR/LOC would have locked onto the VOR signal from Bethel and guided the plane to the correct location, at which time it should have been placed into INS mode. In INS mode, the autopilot uses the Inertial Navigation System to keep the aircraft between waypoints. This is used when a VOR is out of range, and would have to be used to keep KE007 clear of Kamchatka Peninsula, as their route would have them under 20 miles from Soviet airspace. However, if you are more than 7.5 miles off from the INS course line, the INS mode will not work.

Approximately 10 minutes after take off, the aircraft, flying on a heading of 245 (Bethel was a heading of 220), began to drift off its course, towards Russian airspace. Approximately 28 minutes after take off, the radar at Kenai noticed them 5.6 miles where they should have been. This would continue towards Russia for the rest of the flight.

It appears that neither Kenai, or Elmendorf noticed that the aircraft was out of position in real time, so no warning was passed on to the crew. Meanwhile, on 007, they attempted to use the VHF radio to radio their position to ATC, but were unable to do so. This should have been one warning them that they were off course, but they simply asked KE015 which was behind them, and in range, to pass their reports on.

At the same time, near the Kamchatka Peninsula, a Soviet missile test was scheduled for the same day that KE007 was going past. A US Air Force RC-135 was flying in the area monitoring the test, and gathering signals intelligence at the time the 747 was passing by.

KE007 penetrated Soviet airspace at 1551 UTC, when Soviet aircraft were scrambled to intercept it. Due to radio problems the intercept failed. Meanwhile Soviet commanders were arguing over what to do. One wanted the aircraft destroyed, even if it was in international airspace, after positive identification was made. Another said no ID was required, as it had already penetrated their airspace.

The flight reentered international airspace for a short time, before reentering Soviet airspace, near Sakhalin Island. This time it was intercepted by three Su-15, and one Mig-23 fighter. The lead Su-15 fired warning shots, but they were ignored. He later said he fired approximately 200 rounds, but they were armor piercing, with no tracers. He was then ordered to destroy the aircraft.

The lead pilot knew the aircraft was a Boeing, but he never told the ground controllers. He fired two K-8 air to air missiles at the aircraft (NATO name AA-3 Anab). Both missiles exploded under the tail of the aircraft.

The 747 immediately began to climb for several minutes, before leveling off, and returning to pre-attack altitude and airspeed. It was heavily damaged, but remained under control for the rest of the flight. The aircraft began a four minute decent to 16,000 feet, where it remained for several minutes, before continuing down to 10,000 feet. The aircraft was last seen in a slow spiraling decent over Moneron Island, both visually, and on radar. The radar could only see down to 1,000 feet, so it's not known when, or how the aircraft finally crashed. However, it appeared to be under control the entire way down.

The Passengers

Korean 007 carried 246 passengers. Most were Korean nationals returning home, but the most interesting person on the plane was Georgia Representative Lawrence McDonald, on his way to Seoul for a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of South Korean and US military cooperation. He was supposed to be traveling with Senator Jesse Helms, Steven Symms, and Representative Carol Hubbard, but due to delays the previous couple of days, he was the only one on the flight. Rep Hubbard had canceled and Senators Symms, and Helms were on KE015, behind KE007. Senator Helms had tried to get Rep McDonald to join them, but he was sleeping and didn't want to be disturbed so he remained on 007.

Rep McDonald was the Democratic Representative from Georgia, but was so conservative that he apparently made the Republicans look downright liberal. He introduced a number of bills, including bills that would make it illegal for aid, loans, or weapons to go to any Communist or Communist friendly regime, as well as trying to create a committee for internal security (he greatly admired McCarthy). He was the second president of the John Birch Society, and at the time of the incident he was considering running for President of the United States.

The Search

Immediately after the shoot down, South Korea designated Japan and the US to be in charge of the search and recovery. If the aircraft was found in international waters, this would make it illegal for the Soviets to salvage the aircraft, and legal for the US to use force if necessary to stop them. The Soviet government didn't acknowledge the incident until September 6th, and said they didn't know where the aircraft came down.

The US, Japan, and Korea searched from September 1, until approximately September 27th with no success. The Soviet military did everything possible to interfere with the search, and refused to let any other nation enter their waters. Meanwhile, the US Navy observed many Soviet ships operating near Moneron Island. The low end of numbers was 19, up to a high of 32 ships at any given time. There were 48 known different ships, of 40 different classes involved.

No debris was found by the international search teams, but Japanese and American members met with Soviet officials on September 26th, where they were given 213 pairs of shoes, that the Soviet members said were all that had been retrieved.

In Hokkaido, eight days after the shoot down, 13 sets of remains were found washed on shore. A partial torso of a Caucasian woman, and an Asian child were found, as well as tissue, and other remains. None were ever identified. Various other pieces of debris, items usually found in the cabin also washed ashore.

1991

In 1991 several former Soviet divers were interviewed. All said they were shocked when they found the wreckage. When no remains were found on the surface, they expected to find an intact fuselage, with the people trapped in it. Upon finding the wreckage, they said the largest pieces were of spars, the rest of the aircraft was shattered. They found some clothing, but no bodies, and no sign of any luggage. They agreed that the wreckage looked as if it had been trawled there. Before arriving on scene, they said a number of Soviet military trawlers were in the area, dragging, which is the last thing they would have expected, until after the divers went down.

1992

In 1992, the Russian Federation released transcripts of the incident. Immediately after the shoot down, Soviet commanders ordered search and rescue helicopters to launch and check the area near the island. Eight minutes later they ordered "every ship in the area" to head to Moneron Island.

2012

In June of 2012, after finally getting a look at all the data that had been released, family members of the passengers began a petition asking the White House to reopen the case, and pressure the Russian government to admit what happened to their families. They believe that the aircraft ditched, either on the island, or in the water near the island, and all, or most of the passengers on board survived, and were taken by the Soviet government, and not allowed to leave. They believe that at least the younger passengers could still be living in Russia to this day.

Conspiracies

At the time of the shoot down, it was widely believed that the Soviets mistook the Boeing 747 for the US Air Force RC-135 (based on the Boeing 707) that was operating in the area. The Soviets claimed that the 747 was flying with no lights on at the time. The pilot of the Su-15 that fired on them later said he knew it was a Boeing, as it was lit up. He saw two rows of windows (upper deck and lower deck), as well as strobes and navigation lights.

There were also claims that the US deliberately used the 747 to spy on the Soviets, as Kamchatka is one of the most vital military bases of the Soviet (now Russian) Navy.

The question now is, why did the aircraft go so far off course in the first place. Was there something on board that made the INS drift (this really isn't hard to do with the old INS units. We used to mess with crews that annoyed us and park them over a metal grate on the ground, and it would skew their alignment to hell and gone)? Did the crew simply forget to switch from Heading mode to INS mode on the autopilot?

Another question is, did the Soviet government deliberately target the aircraft to get at Representative McDonald? Or did he know something and was trying to get to Russia without anyone knowing what he was doing, so he helped them to target the aircraft to fake his death?

There are many questions that 30 years later don't even start to have an answer, and it appears that we may never get those answers. At least not for many more years.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Conspiracies

At the time of the shoot down, it was widely believed that the Soviets mistook the Boeing 747 for the US Air Force RC-135 (based on the Boeing 707) that was operating in the area. The Soviets claimed that the 747 was flying with no lights on at the time. The pilot of the Su-15 that fired on them later said he knew it was a Boeing, as it was lit up. He saw two rows of windows (upper deck and lower deck), as well as strobes and navigation lights.

There were also claims that the US deliberately used the 747 to spy on the Soviets, as Kamchatka is one of the most vital military bases of the Soviet (now Russian) Navy.

The question now is, why did the aircraft go so far off course in the first place. Was there something on board that made the INS drift (this really isn't hard to do with the old INS units. We used to mess with crews that annoyed us and park them over a metal grate on the ground, and it would skew their alignment to hell and gone)? Did the crew simply forget to switch from Heading mode to INS mode on the autopilot?

Another question is, did the Soviet government deliberately target the aircraft to get at Representative McDonald? Or did he know something and was trying to get to Russia without anyone knowing what he was doing, so he helped them to target the aircraft to fake his death?

There are many questions that 30 years later don't even start to have an answer, and it appears that we may never get those answers. At least not for many more years.

bold emphasis by responder

Good thread, and thanks for the update Zaphod. This incident eats at me too.
For the INS issue, if a heavy even back then got that far off the stripe over the water, I'm sure
there would be customary radio from Center and a course correct. Being that close to Soviet
space is even more of a good reason. As protective of the Kamchatka as the Ruskys
are for just the missile bases, any impingement with even a commercial number puts the
command in a g-suit knot. Being out there they naturally weren't carrying a squak, but the
cowboys made a visual-- and it was verified a heavy commercial and not a 135.
Shouldn't have pulled the trigger on them, whether accidental drift or semi-spun photo mission.

A simpler, uglier theory:
I'm convinced that Congressman Larry was much more a thorn in the side of the PTB
than just the second sitting President of the John Birch. I believe the Soviets were just
taking orders or maybe, a strong suggestion to get rid of KAL because he was on it.
Whether the flight made it in to only a crash land is secondary speculation to the payload...

"The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government
combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their
control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot,
international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."
1976, in the well of the House.

Communism at the bottom, fascism at the top, all run by the big mob bosses.
Sure says almost as much as Louis Mc Fadden in seconds, doesn't it?

The reasons Larry McDonald had to get neutralized was he was smart, honest, and
had credibility. And if he isn't a door slammer (which I DO doubt) I hope Alan
Grayson has somebody with white wings watching his six too. Same cookie cutter...

Excellent thread Zaph.

I have wondered why the KAL 007 incident gets so little attention on these boards. As you have pointed out, there are a lot of murky details that are genuinely suspicious.

Although I am not ready to make the leap and suggest the course deviation that put KAL 007 in prohibited airspace over Kamchatka was purposeful, however I strongly suspect there is much more to the story than we have been told.

The rumours I have heard were that there were multiple U.S. intelligence assets observing the Soviet ICBM test (including a classified Shuttle mission being somehow involved, but I haven't seen anything definite other than the acknowledged RC-135. STS-8 was in orbit on Sept 1st however there is no mention of anything classified on that flight that I have seen so who knows? Perhaps our resident NASA guru James O'berg would have some insight?. )

I have also heard that the aircrew were rotated at the last moment in Anchorage and that the substitute crew were ROKAF reservists but so are a good percentage of airline flight crews around the world so even if true, I don't know that it would be a significant detail.

It is clear the wreckage was significantly disturbed somehow, perhaps the Soviets poking around or perhaps a specialised USN submersible like U.S.S. Halibut was making sure the debris field was sanitised for some reason.

I honestly don't see what could have been gained through a clandestine operation putting a civilian airliner at risk that couldn't have been accomplished more effectively by dedicated assets such as the RC-135 that was there as well.

I don't personally believe Representative McDonald's involvement was anything more than coincidence however it wouldn't be the first time an airliner was deliberately targeted to assassinate a single passenger.

Regardless, things were getting kinda froggy between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in the North Eastern Pacific during the summer of 1983 and the situation was ripe for something like this to have accidently happened.

For anyone reading along who is unfamiliar with the times...

In 1983, Cold War tensions between the US and USSR had escalated to a level not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis because of several factors.

These included the United States's Strategic Defense Initiative, its planned deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe in March and April, and FleetEx '83, the largest fleet exercise held to date in the North Pacific.

The military hierarchy of the Soviet Union (particularly the old guard led by Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov and Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov) viewed these actions as bellicose and destabilizing; they were deeply suspicious of Ronald Reagan's intentions and openly fearful he was planning a first strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union.

These fears culminated in Operation RYAN, the code name for a secret intelligence gathering program initiated by Andropov to prepare for the nuclear sneak attack which he believed Reagan was plotting.

Aircraft from USS Midway and USS Enterprise repeatedly overflew Soviet military installations in the disputed Kurile Islands during FleetEx '83, resulting in the dismissal or reprimanding of Soviet military officials who had been unable to shoot them down.

Interestingly, this was not the first major incident between a KAL airliner and Soviet Air Defense. Are you familiar with Korean Air Flight 902?

On April 20, 1978, Soviet air defense shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902) near Murmansk, USSR, after the civilian aircraft violated Soviet airspace and allegedly failed to respond to Soviet interceptors.

Soviet air defense initially assumed the plane was part of Soviet marine aviation, but then mistakenly identified it as part of the United States Air Force.

When Captain Alexander Bosov, pilot of the Sukhoi Su-15 that brought down Flight 902, saw Chinese characters on the tail of the Korean aircraft, he attempted to convince his superiors on the ground that the plane was not a military threat. Despite this, Vladmir Tsarkov, commander of the 21st Soviet Air Defense Corps, ordered Bosov to take down the plane.

The Su-15 opened fire, killing two of the 109 total passengers and crew members aboard Flight 902. The plane then made an emergency landing on the frozen Korpijärvi lake near the Finnish border.

Simple coincidence?

There was definitely testimony from Japanese fishermen that the plane circled Moneron. Did it ditch? Maybe. Whether it was a ferret trip of somesort, you'll never find out. That would be buried deep, and neither side is going to admit there were survivors if that happened.

interesting thread...I vaguely remember when it happened...will follow to see where this leads,

reply to post by Zaphod58


Didn't know about this incident!!
Fantastic revisiting, thank you =D
& thank you to the above poster who explained a bit more about the tension in 1983..
I wasn't even born yet, soo.. I appreciate the explanation

S&F

on a similar note...they are trying to reopen the crash of the concord... saw a show on tv about it last night. wasn't just piece of metal on the runway...

the weight was way too much(they refueled there and way too much fuel was added, 20 extra bags of luggage added at the last minute they knew this and took off on the longer crappier runway which helped schred the tire....there was a bracket left in the hanger by maintnance which caused the plane to veer a bit.

they went with the basic .."the plane hit the metal part on runway and ignore the rest leading up to this to save their butts.

thought the timing was interesting, 3 crashes being relooked at...

Originally posted by kathael
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

I wasn't even born yet, soo..

You kids stay off our lawn!


It was a different world to be sure. The Russians didn't tip toe through the tulips very well. The threat of imminent war was, on occasion, very real. And incidents like these helped form an overly simplistic, but generally reliable, sense of who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad guys".

in the same vein, they are trying to reopen the crash of the concord..good tv show last night...it hit the metal on the runway during takeoff, but stuff happened leading up to that that they just discarded.


this thread,m and the twa800...that makes 3 aircrashes being looked at, why now????

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


I'm not entirely sure that it was anything more than coincidence that he was on the plane, but with his record, and the fact that he was considering a Presidential campaign, it's entirely possible someone went after him.

As for the INS, the older systems in use when this happened, were notorious for drifting. That being said, 2 miles in less than an hour is extreme, even for those systems. That sounds like either the crew completely forgot to switch modes (possible), they had a bad alignment, they didn't realign in Anchorage, or something was screwing with the INS.

We used to be able to pull an INS off by 110 degrees at Hickam. There was one spot on the ramp that had a large metal drain built into the ramp. If you parked the aircraft a little short of the spot, that grate would skew the INS alignment something awful. Move it forward a few feet in front of the spot, and all was good. Right on the spot it was 50/50 if it would skew it, but it never did to the extent that being short did.

The reports of the divers, the fact that the wreckage was trawled, and the SAR efforts immediately after the crash make me think that at least some, if not most of the passengers survived the initial crash.

Originally posted by _Del_
It was a different world to be sure. The Russians didn't tip toe through the tulips very well. The threat of imminent war was, on occasion, very real.

God isn't that the truth. I was only really around for the end of it, but looking back through reports, and history books, it seems like the end was the truly exciting time. It seemed like every time we turned around there was a war threat.

When this happened, I remember being convinced that it was going to lead to someone shooting, especially when the Soviets started locking onto ships, and flying bombers in the area.

Saying the Russians didn't "tip toe through the tulips very well" is like saying "Oh no, that elephant won't smash your bushes down!" It seemed their approach was to beat something with the biggest hammer around until they got what they wanted. Heh.

reply to post by Zaphod58


The requisiton order on a new hammer though... I mean short of taking one off the flag, they would have been waiting a month for it. By that time, I personally find that all the nails have buggered off out of it.

After laying out facts about CFR, NWO, and communists on Crossfire TV show, dead within 3 months. Like JFK and his executive order regarding new greenbacks. Not likely to be coincidence in either case.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Drunkenparrot

 

I'm not entirely sure that it was anything more than coincidence that he was on the plane, but with his record, and the fact that he was considering a Presidential campaign, it's entirely possible someone went after him.

When Korean Air 007 went down Congressman Dr. Lawrence Patton McDonald (D-GA), cousin of General George Patton, is on board. McDonald had once written:
.
"The goal of the Rockefellers is world government, combining capitalism and Communism under the same tent. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced of such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."

Also due to fly on KAL 007 were anti-Communist Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Steve Symms (R-ID), who didn’t fly due to delays. If not for the delays, a decapitation of Congress's three leading anti-Communists would have occurred.
When addressing the nation after the tragedy, President Reagan does not mention McDonald’s name. He had been advised not to mention McDonald for fear it would spark "conspiracy theories."

Avraham Shifrin, a self-declared KGB expert,[63] claimed that according to the investigation of his research centre, KAL 007 landed on water north of Moneron, and the passengers successfully disembarked on emergency floats. The Soviets collected them and subsequently sent them to camps (with the children "separated from their parents and safely hidden in the orphan houses of one of the Soviet Middle Asian republics"). McDonald in particular was supposed to have gone through a number of prisons in Moscow, among them the Central Lubyanka, and Lefortovo.[64]

...a letter sent in 1991 by senator Jesse Helms, while he was ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to Russian President Boris Yeltsin requesting information about the fate of KAL 007, including, in a list of questions, a request to know the whereabouts of any survivors and their camp locations, and requesting also to know of the fate of Larry McDonald,[61] indicates that Helms took the abduction theory seriously.

en.wikipedia.org...

funny the week this happened i was in the process of joining the army but ahhh i was such a clueless kid
at the time & never thought much about it god like they say ignorance is bliss

Nice thread Zaphod I had forgotten all about this incident. As you are well versed in all things aeronautic can you explain why air traffic control didn`t advise them they were drifting off course?

reply to post by dashdespatch


There was a civilian radar station at Kenai that saw them 5.6 miles off course, and a military station at King Salmon that fed to Elmendorf AFB, that saw them 12.6 miles off course. According to official reports, neither station had anyone in position to see the display in real time, and notice how far off course they were. The Anchorage VOR, another way the crew could have noticed they were off course was down for maintenance at the time of the flight.

They SHOULD have noticed they were off when they received the Bethel VORTAC beacon. For some reason however, they either didn't notice, or the computer said they were within deviation limits.

Once they cleared Bethel there was no radar coverage, except by the Soviet military along their ADIZ, which was only 17 miles off corridor Romeo 20, which is what KEL007 was assigned.

What's really interesting about the deviation is that they passed through the North American ADIZ between Bethel and NADIE. The ADIZ is monitored, and that portion at least at the time was restricted airspace to civilian aircraft. But somehow, no one noticed them going through it.

I just watched a documentary on the 007 flight. Aparently the flight data recorder (which was recovered by Soviet authorities and handed over to International investigators after the fall of the Soviet Union) showed that the pilots had neglected to switch on the inertial navigation system. The outo pilot was only receiving input from the magnetic system.